


take from me

by sepiacigarettes



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Childhood Friends, Fluff, Galra Keith (Voltron), Galra Shiro (Voltron), Galran Culture (Voltron), Hair Braiding, Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-12
Updated: 2020-07-12
Packaged: 2021-03-04 23:07:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,119
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25174375
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sepiacigarettes/pseuds/sepiacigarettes
Summary: “Will you braid it into my hair for me?” Shiro says, hushed.Keith hesitates. What Shiro is asking for isn’t something Keith has ever seen friends doing, nor best friends. It's precious, reserved for mates; Galra are not supposed to give their family ring to someone who isn’t bound in blood to them.“Only if you want me to.”Shiro laughs and it’s a lovely sound. “I'm asking, aren’t I?”In which Keith and Shiro grow up together, braid each other’s hair, and fall in love along the way.
Relationships: Keith/Shiro (Voltron)
Comments: 77
Kudos: 352
Collections: Galra Sheith





	take from me

**Author's Note:**

> For [LevyScript](https://twitter.com/LevyScript1), who asked for a soft sheith fic with Galra Shiro and Blade of Marmora Keith.
> 
> I hope you like this!

> Lover, I know you're weary
> 
> Lover, I feel your sorrow pouring out of your skin
> 
> And I don't want to be alone;
> 
> If I'm tonight, I'll always be
> 
> So take from me
> 
> Whatever you want, whatever you need
> 
> My lover, please stay with me
> 
> — Nothing But Thieves, _Lover, Please Stay_

— K —

The first time Keith braids Shiro’s hair is something he doesn’t even remember. His parents tell the story to him so many times afterwards though that Keith almost feels like he does.

It happened like this: Krolia and Tex took Keith, barely nine moons old, to meet the other kits on the base. Keith spent most of the time hiding in the safety of his pop’s arms until he spied Shiro.

“Like a homing beacon,” Tex recalls. “You just crawled straight towards him and tugged on his hair.”

“Like it was yours,” Krolia adds while Keith sinks further and further into the couch.

 _“Mama,”_ Keith whines. “Do we have to keep bringing it up?”

“Aw, Kit,” Krolia says. “It’s _sweet._ You two wouldn’t have been friends if you hadn’t tried to braid his hair.”

 _You mean grabbed and refused to let go,_ Keith thinks, because neither his parents nor Shiro’s could separate them, and it was only Shiro who succeeded in asking Keith to release his grasp.

They’re best friends now, sure, but it doesn’t make hearing the story any easier.

Shiro is busy training right now, otherwise Keith would already have skipped off to be with him and escaped his parents.

“Pops,” he says instead, gazing imploringly at his father.

“Your mama’s right,” Tex laughs, before he scoops Keith closer and pets his head consolingly.

— K —

The second time Keith braids Shiro’s hair is when he finally gets to learn to spar with Shiro. Keith’s hair is short and unruly and doesn’t fare well whenever Keith’s mother tries to tame it, but Shiro’s two-toned locks are long and sleek, perfect for braiding.

Shiro’s feet are crossed underneath him. The Blades suit looks lovely against his pale lavender skin, something that Keith has always liked about Shiro. It’s lighter than Kolivan’s, not as blue as Antok’s. Keith’s own mixed heritage means he inherited his pops’ skin tone and his mother’s markings, but Shiro’s colour is his own.

“Teach me how to braid?” Keith says, the words tumbling out.

“You don’t know how?”

“Not yet,” Keith challenges, because his mother has definitely tried to teach him.

Shiro screws his nose up at him. “Brat.”

 _“Teach me,”_ Keith repeats.

“Okay!” Shiro laughs, reaching for Keith's hands. “Here. Hold it like this.”

It takes forever, because Shiro is a patient instructor but Keith wants to get this _right,_ and so it’s a long period of his fingers fumbling with the novice task and Shiro’s delight sounding in his ears.

It’s alright though; Shiro is the only person Keith would let see him like this, and at the end of it, Shiro’s hair is braided rather neatly over his shoulder.

“Nice work,” Shiro says, his approval heating Keith’s cheeks. “Ready to spar?”

“Born ready.”

“We’ll see about that.”

(They do see; Keith gets slammed into the mat twice, pushes the air out of Shiro’s lungs the next try, and then they end up in a tickle fight and decide to leave sparring alone for the day).

— K —

The third time Keith braids Shiro’s hair is right after Shiro’s birthday, when Keith is fifteen and Shiro is eighteen and they’re sitting on the edge of his parents’ cruiser. At eighteen, Shiro is the kit that everyone has a crush on, Keith included; he’s tall and has filled out in all the right places with a smile that belongs amongst the constellations, and Keith knows without a doubt that Shiro is the brightest thing in his life.

“Keith?”

“Yeah?”

When Shiro doesn’t answer immediately, Keith turns to appraise him. His smile isn’t a constellation this time. It’s a precarious thing, as though he’s worried of Keith’s reaction. It doesn’t suit his face.

Wordlessly he holds up the luxite ring that Kolivan had pressed into his hand earlier that day. Keith eyes it curiously, taking note of the way it gleams with the word _Shirogane_. Keith won’t get his own until he’s eighteen, but his mother will sometimes let him hold hers. Times like those, Keith likes to run his finger over the letters spelling out his family name until his pop finishes doing her hair and asks for the ring back.

“Will you braid it into my hair for me?” Shiro says, hushed.

Keith hesitates. What Shiro is asking for isn’t something Keith has ever seen friends doing, nor best friends. It's precious, reserved for mates; Galra are not supposed to give their family ring to someone who isn’t bound in blood to them.

“Only if you want me to.”

Shiro laughs and it’s a lovely sound. “I'm asking, aren’t I?”

Keith flushes hot at the reminder, shuffling closer. “Yeah, I know. I just…”

Shiro chuckles, pushing his hair over his shoulder. “There’s no one else I’d ask anyway.”

Hope flutters in Keith’s chest as he takes a lock of Shiro’s hair. “No?”

“Why would I?” Shiro says, and his next words are like a furnace, the way they warm Keith’s whole body: “when I have you?”

— K —

The fourth time Keith braids Shiro’s hair is after he returns from his mission to the Kerberos moon. It was only supposed to be a phoeb—instead it eked out into a decaphoeb and Keith felt every additional quintant like a knife to the heart.

The scar below Shiro’s shoulder is something that makes Keith feel like burning up at the sight of, as is the slash across his nose.

“Shiro,” Keith whines quietly when he sees him for the first time after Ulaz and him arrive back at the base.

Shiro's ears flicker in response and he only has eyes for Keith, but it's not the right time to embrace yet; there are debriefs to be had and a healing pod to climb into. It hurts, a new sort of pain, but Keith weathers it with the same infuriating patience he’s had to learn over the last decaphoeb without Shiro.

It's an eternity later when they discharge Shiro, and Keith is right there to walk him back to his room.

No words are spoken as they pad down the halls, when Keith ushers Shiro onto the bed and crawls straight into his lap.

The only sound is Shiro's whimper as Keith tucks himself against Shiro’s chest and buries his nose in Shiro’s neck.

And then: _"Keith."_

It feels like a wound is opening in Keith’s chest at the sound of it.

“I’m here,” Keith answers. He doesn’t ask what happened, half because he’s too scared to know, and half because he doesn’t want Shiro to live through whatever horror it was. “You’re safe now.”

“Yeah.”

There isn’t any possible way Keith can get closer than what he is now, but it still isn’t enough. The luxite ring in Shiro’s hair is coming loose and he looks like he needs a decaphoeb of sleep, but all he’s staring at right now is Keith.

“I thought about you,” he whispers. “The whole time, I…”

He doesn’t need to finish the sentence.

“I missed you,” Keith says fiercely, growl forming low in his throat.

Shiro’s eyes close. “Thought I’d never see you again.”

“I’m here.”

“Yes.” One hand comes up, cups the back of Keith’s neck, holds him close. “I'm sorry.”

“No apologies,” Keith says. “You should sleep.”

“Yes.”

Keith wants to kiss him, wants to take the hurt from Shiro until he stops looking so weary.

“Let me stay,” Keith says softly, fingers threading through Shiro’s hair where it hangs around his face.

Shiro makes a choking noise, and Keith squeezes his eyes shut as he feels the hot splash of tears on his cheek. “You never have to ask, _lov’ika.”_

Something in Keith stutters to a stop at the endearment. If Shiro asking Keith to braid his luxite ring into his hair was precious enough, this is sacred.

“Alright then,” he says, pulling Shiro’s hair into a neater braid before settling with him in the sheets. “I won't.”

(Later, they talk about it, about the run-in with pirates, about their imprisonment, about the way Ulaz and Shiro clawed their way out and how Shiro lost his arm in the process. Keith runs his hand over the scar and the new Olkari-made prosthetic that Shiro acquired during their planet-hopping journey to get home, and when he lays his cheek against it in reverence, Shiro shudders and holds him as close as he can).

— K —

The first time Shiro braids Keith’s hair is the night of the harvest moon on Daibazaal. The planet is alive with festivities, explosions of colour and revelry everywhere, and Shiro laughs as he drags Keith through the crowds, seeking a way out.

The Marmorans do this every year—travel to the Galra capital planet to celebrate the event—but it’s different this time, the way Keith’s blood is singing in his veins. Khorit shines brightly above their heads, bathing the planet in her glow and pulling at something inside Keith, and he holds onto the sensation, feeling as though he’s exactly where he’s supposed to be.

The crowd rises and falls around them, and then suddenly they’re free from the streets, chasing down narrow pathways until they get to the fields. There are revellers here too, and there is Shiro, shoving Keith into the long grass.

“Hey!” Keith yells, indignant, and he latches onto Shiro’s arm on the way down and takes him with him.

They land in a mess of limbs, Shiro’s face streaked with golden light from Khorit. “Not fair, _lov’ika,”_ he says, before leaning down to pant against Keith’s throat.

It’s the only thing he calls Keith these days.

Keith wonders if Shiro feels it too, the strange twisting thing inside his body that demands to be let out. Keith would do so, if only he knew what it meant.

“You’re heavy,” Keith complains in an attempt to distract himself, and Shiro snorts and flops even more on top of him. _“Shiro.”_

Shiro’s laughter always feels like a balm, but today it stokes the heat inside Keith, and then they’re wrestling, writhing together in the grass. Keith’s palms are damp where they land on Shiro, pawing at his chest, his arms, and Shiro just huffs out his amusement as he gets his hands around Keith’s ribs and tickles him.

The breath feels like it’s punched from Keith and Keith gasps with it, going to draw in another breath because the heat of it is stifling, and then he never does because Shiro ducks his head and opens his mouth against Keith’s neck.

Keith’s blood _sings._

Shiro leans back, hair coming loose from the braid Keith had done for him earlier. Keith’s own is a mess, but haloed in Khorit’s light, Shiro looks ethereal, and Keith doesn’t care about how mussed up he looks as he tilts his head, baring his throat.

Braiding hair, holding each other’s family rings, endearments—none are as explicit as what Keith is doing, but it feels _right,_ like he’s been waiting to do this for Shiro since forever.

And from the way Shiro is looking at him, Keith thinks that maybe he has been too.

He can hear the rapid _thump thump_ of Shiro’s heart, can feel the sticky press of Shiro’s fingers on his hips, can smell the sharp tang of Shiro’s sweat.

“Go on,” he whispers, heart lurching back and forth between his throat and his chest, and Shiro does without question.

“Let me—” he grunts, hands clumsy as they teeter on the edge of this _thing._ “Here—” and he lifts Keith to him with one arm, buries his face in Keith’s throat and _bites._

— K —

Later, with his claiming bite still healing over, Keith wraps his arms around his knees. The air is cooler now and he welcomes it as Shiro sits behind him, braiding the Shirogane ring into his hair. It would be a lot quicker if Shiro was focused, but he’s more concerned with pressing kisses to Keith’s shoulder, each one soft enough that Keith wonders if he’s dreaming the whole thing.

“I’m yours, y’know,” Shiro murmurs when he’s done. “Think I was from the first day we met.”

Keith turns and climbs into his lap, tugging lightly at Shiro’s own braid where Keith’s family ring is nestled. “I’ve always been yours.”

Shiro hums, because they both _know,_ and then he pushes Keith back into the long grass and doesn’t let him up for the rest of the night.

— end —

**Author's Note:**

> 1\. _lov’ika_ : ‘beloved’
> 
> Y'all can find me on [twitter](https://twitter.com/sepiacigarettes)


End file.
